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Sorry for the lateness. There’s a lot going on. And there will be a lot going on at this meeting.
We start the evening with Board and Commission interviews, followed by a closed session regarding a lawsuit that has been filed against the City by San Francisco Baykeeper.
At an awards ceremony last night, the Silicon Valley Business Journal awarded Most Creative Deal to Sunnyvale’s handling of the land transfer of Onizuka Air Force Base. This was a seven year process that only really took off two years ago, when Sunnyvale City Manager Gary Luebbers and the current City Council pretty much tossed out all of the ideas that had been proposed to date and came up with the land swaps and leases that resulted in an expanded Fire Station 5, a new Foothill/De Anza satellite campus, a Veterans Administration R&D facility, and homeless and low income housing on the old armory site.
This was a huge and complicated effort involving multiple land swaps and negotiations between ten different parties, including the Air Force and GSA, the City of Sunnyvale, Foothill/De Anza, the VA, MidPen Housing, Charities Housing, and others. And it all came together in about two years.
Sunnyvale should feel very proud of what we accomplished with Onizuka, and the SVBJ award is just recognition of our terrific accomplishment.
Diverse night. Note that Councilmember Davis will be teleconferencing.
We start the evening with a study session involving a new project proposed in Moffett Park. A developer is proposing to use up almost all of the remaining planned but unused office space allotment in one project, and we’ll be hearing about what the project may involve.
Next is the general meeting. There aren’t any special orders or presentations. There’s a decent-sized consent calendar, including two public safety grants, an increase in the cost of the road modifications near PAMF, a major IT network upgrade, and a resolution involving Safe Routes to Transit.
Item 2 involves regulation of payday lending establishments. This reflects a growing concern about the predatory nature of some of these establishments, and we’ll be looking at possibly adopting restrictions. Staff identifies four options: A) place restrictions on new establishments, B) outright ban new establishments, C) cap the number of establishments, and D) do nothing.
Item 3 involves possible revisions to the sign code. We recently did an update to the sign code, and unbeknownst to some councilmembers, the recent update seems to have legalized the placement of temporary (political) signs in landscaped areas between sidewalks and streets. I expect the discussion will look at whether or not this was a desired change, and whether or not to pursue restoring the previous restriction on political signs.
Item 4 involves adopting a cost-sharing agreement with the Santa Clara Valley Water District to extend the scope of Sunnyvale’s recycled water system down Wolfe to the far southern part of the city.
Item 4 has us potentially taking positions on the November ballot measures. Staff is recommending supporting the transient occupancy tax increase, and taking no position on the other two.
And item 5 is possible ratification of Councilmember Davis’ appointment as the “Central County” representative to the Santa Clara County Emergeny Operational Area Committee.
Pretty straightforward agenda, although I expect a lot of speakers on the payday lending issue.
And this one is scary, given how far the scammers are willing to go to make it seem real. Please be careful.
There’s one subtle clue to the fakery in what the scammers say – someone from Sunnyvale’s Department of Public Safety would never use the term “Sunnyvale Police Department”.
Continuing our pledge of keeping positive open lines of communication with our residents and Neighborhood Associations, I wanted to pass along reminder information about scams and frauds that are targeting our community, and in particular senior adults.
Learning point– In this particular scam, the third caller claimed to be a Sunnyvale police officer and in fact gave the full name of a current Sunnyvale police lieutenant. Further, the number that showed on her caller ID was 730-7100 which appeared to be our main information line. When our resident checked and saw that the number was truly associated with the Department of Public Safety she was really thinking that this was a possibility. Luckily, she told the caller that she would meet with them on Monday at the police station here in Sunnyvale to provide the money and finish the transaction. As you can imagine, they never called back or showed up.
This is a CONFIRMED scam known as an “advanced payment” scam. As a reminder, no government agency will contact you by phone suggesting, asking or telling you that it is ok to send money anywhere. Unless a celebrity shows up on your door step, you did not win a clearing house sweepstakes, sorry. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is a scam. If anyone asks you to send money first to get more money later, then it is a scam. Never wire transfer money to anyone you don’t personally know and then if you do know them, only if you personally talk with them. Some scammers will infiltrate email and pose as a friend stuck somewhere needing money.
Additional information regarding these scams and other Internet Fraud safety tips can be found on the FBI website at
http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud/internet_fraud/internet_fraud
Thank you for your continued support of the City of Sunnyvale, Department of Public Safety.
Tracy C. Hern
Lieutenant
Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety
Crime Prevention Unit
thern@sunnyvale.ca.gov
(408) 730-7114
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